Google Pittsburgh Interns Living The Dream
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The movie "The Internship" brought in big laughs and $18 million at the box office this weekend. The comedy stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson who become interns at Google.
So, what is it really like to be an intern at Google? KDKA sent Susan Koeppen to Google Pittsburgh to find out.
It's one of the most sought after internships in the country. And there's good reason why interns go gaga over Google.
It doesn't get much better than free ice cream on the job. In fact, there's free food in just about every corner at Google. You can play pool to blow off steam, and you can even bring your dog to work.
In the movie, "The Internship," Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson score jobs as interns at the search giant. The film is a comedy.
But this is reality. And inside a giant net at Google Pittsburgh, Susan met up with two real interns.
Scott Johnson is a 21-year-old from New Jersey. He's a computer science major at Georgia Tech.
Koeppen: "What's it like to be an intern at Google?"
Johnson: "It's a lot of fun actually."
Matt Gardner, a 27-year-old from California, is getting his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Koeppen: "What's your favorite thing about working at Google?"
Gardner: "Well, I do natural language processing machine learning kind of stuff."
Obviously, you need to be smart if work at Google. Google worked with Hollywood in the making of "The Internship," but the movie does take creative license.
Johnson: "There's definitely some inaccuracies."
Gardner: "Just a few."
Johnson: "Just a few."
The Googlers say that's a yes.
Johnson: "It's perfectly okay to have a beer with your boss, as long as it's within reason."
Koeppen: "And is that here in house?"
Johnson: "Of course."
Koeppen: "Oh, you have beer here?"
What about those goofy hats, real or just Hollywood fiction?
Koeppen: "When I saw this I thought there's no way they wear this hat. But you really wear this hat?"
They wear it on their first day on the job.
So, how do you get an internship at Google in the first place?
Koeppen: "If you were a microphone and you were under the KDKA news desk what would you do?"
Well, questions like that don't really exist at Google. But Gardener says he was busy writing computer code during his interview.
Over Google Hangout, Susan got a chance to talk to Kyle Ewing, the head of global staffing programs for Google.
Koeppen: "How many people apply to be an intern and how many people get the job?"
Ewing: "This year was our biggest internship class to date, we've got over 1,500 interns across North America. You've met some of those interns in Pittsburgh today. We had 40,000 applications for those spots, so quite a lot of interest.
As Susan learned in the game room, Gardener and Johnson may not be pinball wizards, but they are wizards in their field - part of an elite group at Google Pittsburgh.
Johnson: "It's definitely [a] work hard, play hard kind of attitude here."
Koeppen: "But you wouldn't have it any other way?"
Johnson: "This is the dream."
By the way, interns at Google get paid. And just in case you're interested, Google is hiring. It's looking to add 75 new people to its team in Pittsburgh.
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